uphold

verb

/ˌʌpˈhəʊld/

Etymology

From Middle English upholden, equivalent to up- + hold. Compare Dutch ophouden (“to stop, cease, hold up”), German aufhalten (“to stop, halt, detain”). Compare also Middle Low German upholt, Old Norse upphald (“uphold, support”).

inherited from upholden

Definitions

1
To hold up
To hold up; to lift on high; to elevate.
- The mournful train/ Echoed her grief, [...]/ With groans, and hands upheld, to move his mind, /Besought his pity to their helpless kind
2
To keep erect
To keep erect; to support; to sustain; to keep from falling
- A man's pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit.
- That misbegotten devil, Falconbridge, /In spite of spite, alone upholds the day.
- Uttering such broken ejaculations Mrs. Hart burst into a passion of tears, and only Lord Chetwynde's strong arms prevented her from falling. / He upheld her.
3
To support by approval or encouragement
To support by approval or encouragement; to vindicate; to confirm (something which has been questioned)
- let any moral come along and she would uphold it
- but there was still a connexion upheld among the different ideas, which succeeded each other.
- We must continually separate out and clearly articulate that support for the Jews as a people has nothing to do with upholding the policies of the Israeli state.
›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer
1. A surname.

The neighborhood

synonymvindicate

Derived

upholdatory

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at uphold. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

A definitional loop anchored at uphold. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

7 hops · closes at uphold

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA